Just one Sentence
by Jasnah
Summary: 5o themes, one sentence each. Sometimes one sentence is enough to tell a whole story. (Written for the 1 sentence challenge on LJ, theme set Epsilon.)


**No. 1: Motion**

At first, Suzaku's just been frustrated, but now, five hours of practice later, he was almost on the edge of panic, because _how was he supposed to be Zero when he couldn't even mimic Lelouch's stupid dramatic hand movements?!_

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 **No. 2: Cool**

Lelouch said, "Here, take this," and as he gallantly draped his cape over her, his fingers ever so slightly brushing her shoulders, Kallen felt a chill running down her spine that had _nothing_ to do with cold air.

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 **No. 3: Young**

"You're still so young, both of you," Cecile mumbled, an unspoken "too young to give up on your lives already" hanging in the air, and the emperor smiled at her, lopsidedly and almost amused, as he said, "And some of the people we've killed were even younger than us, so it's only fair."

.

 **No. 4: Last**

"I hate you," she spat as the guards dragged her out of her cell under his watchful, condescending eyes – and two hours later, when he lay dead in front of his crying sister, Kallen wished her last words for him would have been different.

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 **No. 5: Wrong**

He had never told Suzaku the truth about the circumstances of Euphie's death.

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 **No. 6: Gentle**

Shirley had no idea why everyone thought she was in love with Lelouch Lamperouge – she barely knew the boy, after all – but as she witnessed how his eyes lit up with gentleness and affection when he spoke to his little sister, she had the indistinct feeling that falling in love with him wouldn't be _that_ unlikely …

.

 **No. 7: One**

He shed one single tear for Euphie when he decided to kill her.

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 **No. 8: Thousand**

And months later, when she was dead and buried, he sacrificed thousands of lives to make everyone forget about the Massacre Princess.

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 **No. 9: King**

Lelouch once tried to teach Suzaku chess, but Suzaku needed less than an hour to decide that the game was stupid, because "You sacrifice all the pawns to protect the king, but it should be the other way around!"

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 **No. 10: Learn**

Kallen face-palmed when Gino proudly announced that he would learn Japanese to prove his undying love for her – she did it mainly because Gino was an idiot (again), but it wasn't a bad side effect that she could hide the slight blush on her face this way.

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 **No. 11: Blur**

His life slipped through her fingers, her screams knifed through their cheers, a lie blurred into truth, the sun was shining, he was smiling.

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 **No. 12: Wait**

He bedded her head on his lap and whispered her true name like a mantra as he waited for the warmth to seep back into her lifeless body.

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 **No. 13: Change**

He couldn't suppress a pained wince when Shirley called him _Lelouch_ instead of _Lulu._

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 **No. 14: Command**

"It's quite simple, actually: I ordered you to live, because I wanted you to live," Lelouch said, for once not trying to avoid Suzaku's questions with half-truths and empty phrases, "I had to ulterior motive to do it, it wasn't planned … I just acted on instinct."

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 **No. 15: Hold**

The mask felt heavy in his hands all of a sudden, as if he held the weight of the world in his hands, and even though he didn't know how to bear it, he knew that he would.

.

 **No. 16: Need**

Kallen's appraising stare was almost scaring her away, but Nina had sworn to become better, so she forced herself to calm down, and when she finally started speaking, it was almost without stammer: "I … I wanted to talk to you, because I thought that you might need someone who understands how it feels like to … to mourn for someone who is hated by everybody else."

.

 **No. 17: Vision**

It wasn't something Kallen liked to admit, but killing her opponents was much easier for her when they sat in a knightmare and she couldn't see their faces behind that mass of steel.

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 **No. 18: Attention**

It was late at night and Milly re-watched the footage for what felt like the hundredth time already (on mute, because the princess's screams were too much for her to bear), wondering if the smile she saw on Lelouch's face was actually there or if it was just her distressed mind playing tricks on her.

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 **No. 19: Soul**

Kallen refused to believe that Zero's words were just empty phrases in order to manipulate them; no, only a man who'd put his very soul into this could talk with such passion and devotion.

.

 **No. 20: Picture**

He sometimes wondered how a man like Clovis who'd ordered the murder of hundreds of people without a second thought had been able to create such paintings full of beauty, grace and warmth – then again, he was a mass murderer and a hypocrite as well, so it wasn't really his place to judge, right?

.

 **No. 21: Fool**

"Tamaki," Zero sighed, the tone curiously more resigned than angry, "what have you done _this time_?"

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 **No. 22: Mad**

He was laughing, but it wasn't mirthful; it was hard and desperate and manic, and he just couldn't stop – which was fine, for he didn't feel like stopping anyway.

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 **No. 23: Child**

On that day he was not only robbed of his mother, but also of his childhood – the childhood never came back completely, but Suzaku helped him to regain it at least to some extent.

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 **No. 24: Now**

 _Do it already,_ Shirley thought frantically, _tell him that you love him, now!,_ but just as she'd worked up the courage to open her mouth, his phone started ringing, and the moment was gone.

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 **No. 25: Shadow**

Kallen asked, "Lelouch, what am I to you?", but he didn't answer, a shadow of _something_ – something she couldn't grasp – lurking beneath his eyes, and her shoulders slumped.

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 **No. 26: Goodbye**

And then, without any preamble, the weird green-haired girl shove a thick envelope with his name written on it into his hands, saying "I saved this from his trash bin, so I guess I'm acting against his will giving you this … then again, if he really didn't want you to read it, he would've found a much more effective method to destroy it, don't you think?", and Rivalz wanted to ask her who the hell she was or what the hell she was talking about, but his words froze on his lips when he recognized the handwriting.

.

 **No. 27: Hide**

The great Zero, symbol of hope, defender of justice, slayer of the Demon … was hiding from a cat.

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 **No. 28: Fortune**

"I' not afraid of death … it's the slight chance that I might have received my father's code that frightens me."

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 **No. 29: Safe**

Suzaku was the only one except Lelouch who was allowed to give Nunally piggyback rides, and sometimes he took some liberties and ran as fast as he could, until they were almost flying over the ground with her delighted squeals and his wild laughter filling the air, and Lelouch, despite his constant complains about Suzaku's "careless behavior", never once tried to hold him back.

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 **No. 30: Ghost**

Rivalz stood alone in the Student Council's headquarters, breathed in the dust of old memories, and wondered if he would ever manage to fill this ghostly emptiness with life and laughter again.

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 **No. 31: Book**

C.C. had the habit of flicking through his history books when she was extremely bored, often making cryptic comments like "Ha, as if", "What an interesting interpretation" or "They totally messed this up" – but she never answered when he asked her what she was talking about.

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 **No. 32: Eye**

The soldier looked into the boy's eye and suddenly everything ceased to matter; everything except the gun in his hand that he would use to kill himself now.

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 **No. 33: Never**

She'd promised him to never grant the Geass to anyone else again, and so she lived on, without any hope of ever being freed from her curse, and a part of her hated him for making her believe that it was worth it.

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 **No. 34: Sing**

"Your brother will be back soon, I'm sure of it," C.C. said, absently brushing a strand of hair out of Nunally's face – and then, on a whim she couldn't quite understand, she asked, "Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?"

.

 **No. 35: Sudden**

She took her brother's hand for the first time in months and all of a sudden she just _knew_ _–_ her hands saw what her eyes had not been able to see, and the realization hit her like a bucket of ice water, coldly slapping her out of her fogged self-pity, and cruelly drowning her in grief.

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 **No. 36: Stop**

And wasn't it ironic how she screamed at Zero to stop when she'd wanted nothing more than Lelouch's death just seconds ago?

.

 **No. 37: Time**

Eight hours … she's lost eight hours today and Anya had no idea why or how or how to do something against it, and her sheer helplessness frightened her more than anything else.

.

 **No. 38: Wash**

"No worries, guys," C.C. muttered lazily through a slice of pizza as a mortified (and slightly girlish) shriek echoed through the palace halls, loud enough to put Jeremiah and the other guards on edge, "he just found the red sock that I've put into the washer together with his robes."

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 **No. 39: Torn**

"You know," Kallen mumbled as she bent down to place a flower on his grave, "I'm still not sure whom I hate more: you, for lying to me, or myself, for not seeing through it."

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 **No. 40: History**

He went down in history as one of the evilest and cruelest men of all time – and one half of that was actually true.

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 **No. 41: Power**

Lelouch was the most intriguing contractee she'd ever had: desperate enough to use the Power of Kings, strong-willed enough to control it, and – unfortunately for her – selfless enough to abdicate it at the right time.

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 **No. 42: Bother**

"I won't build a Pizza Hut store into the palace, _period._ "

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 **No. 43: God**

She could hear the Gods, for she was connected to them through her code, each one of them a faint, feather-like whisper in her head, but C.C. had stopped listening a very long time ago.

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 **No. 44: Wall**

"I'm fine," Lelouch said, adding a new brick to the wall of lies he'd built between his friends and himself.

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 **No. 45: Naked**

"A school is _no_ adequate place to hold a strip-poker-tournament," Lelouch hissed through gritted teeth, but Milly deliberately ignored him.

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 **No. 46: Drive**

"Alright," Rivalz proclaimed as he started his bike's engine, "let's teach that snooty noble a lesson and earn lots of cash!", and Lelouch smirked at him, a tiny curl of his lips filled with mischief and promise.

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 **No. 47: Harm**

He'd promised to protect Nunally from any kind of harm, but he had yet to learn that he was terrible at keeping promises.

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 **No. 48: Precious**

 _Damn, Rolo,_ he thought as he ran his fingers over the heart-shaped locket one last time, _this would be much easier if I could still hate you._

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 **No. 49: Hunger**

There was a crust of cheese sticking on the corner of C.C.'s lips, and Lelouch found himself staring at it, contemplating on leaning forward and kissing it away.

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 **No. 50: Believe**

"Of course I believe in victory – it's useless to fight when you don't believe you can win," he said, determination burning in his eyes, and C.C. smiled wryly, muttering something that sounded like "cute" and "optimism".


End file.
